1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an anti-theft system intended to protect goods for sale from theft etc., and in particular to a burglar-alarm system utilizing an alarm to be emitted by an alarm unit attached to such goods.
2. Description of the Related Art
An anti-theft system such as that illustrated in FIG. 3 is commonly employed to prevent shop lifting, etc. at a retail store where compact disks, magnetic tapes, clothing garments, etc. are available to customers. The conventional anti-theft system consists of theft prevention gate 30 installed near exit 40 of the store and alarm unit 20 attached to article 50. The theft prevention gate 30 incorporates a circuit board 31 and transmitter antenna (not shown), and the circuit board 31 is provided with a transmitter circuit (not shown) which transmits an alarm activation signal to the alarm unit 20.
As shown in FIG. 4, the alarm unit 20 has a buzzer 22, a circuit board 23, a battery, etc. (not shown) each of which is housed in casing 21, and in the surface of which casing a plurality of alarm emitting holes 24 are provided and an alarm activation switch piece 25 is embedded. The buzzer 22, which is controlled by the circuit board 23, is designed to be activated when the alarm unit 20 is removed from the article 50 or passes through the theft prevention gate 30. As an alternative to providing the alarm unit 20 with the alarm activation switch piece 25, the alarm unit 20 may be attached directly to the article 50 by means of a wire, in which case when the alarm unit 20 senses that the wire has been removed or cut or passed through the theft prevention gate 30, the buzzer 22 is activated.
At a retail store, the article 50 with the alarm unit 20 affixed thereto is displayed on a rack. When a sales clerk sells the article 50 to a customer, he or she first sends a specified reset signal from an alarm deactivation device (not shown) to the circuit board 23 of the alarm unit 20 to set the alarm unit 20 such that the buzzer 22 will not be activated, then removes the alarm unit 20 from the article 50 and hands the article 50 to the customer when payment is made.
On the contrary, when the alarm unit 20 is removed from the article 50 by a customer, the alarm activation switch piece 25 becomes OFF and the buzzer 22 is activated. Further, in a case that a customer leaves a store premises taking away the article 50 with the alarm unit 20 still attached thereto, the circuit board 23 of the alarm unit 20 receives an alarm activation signal from the transmitter antenna of the theft prevention gate 30, in response to which the buzzer 22 is activated.
However, a checkout counter is usually at the back of a store, far away from the exit 40 of the store where the theft prevention gate 30 is installed and therefore, an alarm from the buzzer 22 that goes off at the exit 40 may not be readily audible from the checkout counter, especially in an environment where back ground music is present, or where many customers are present, etc.
With a view to solving the problem of the anti-theft device described above, a burglar alarm system such as illustrated in FIG. 5 is used as a supplementary device in which alarm sensor device 10 provided with microphone 11 is disposed near the theft prevention gate 30 so that the alarm sensor device 10 senses alarm 12 from the alarm unit 20 and issues alarm signal 13, which is sent through a wire or by wireless connection to a speaker 15 or lamp 16 disposed at a checkout counter 14 to alert store personnel at the checkout counter that the alarm has been activated.
Such a system as described above, however, suffers from a problem in that it may not be able to discriminate interference noise similar to that generated by an alarm, such as back ground music, ambient noise, etc. from an unrelated alarm.
Given the aforementioned problem, it is an object of the present invention to provide a burglar alarm system that can accurately sense an alarm.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a burglar alarm system provided with a function of adjusting the accuracy of determination.